So I really should not be listening to this right now, if I know what's good for me. I'm smoking a cigarette and drinking a hot cup of coffee before bed though, so apparently I don't know what's good for me. Yeah, I'm actually going to have to shut this off.

Okay, let's start again now...

Soundtrack * Morphine - Cure For Pain

Not that this is the happiest music, but that particular first song on that Cure CD has big significance with me, so I'm not going there after tonight...So I just got in from the Red Hot Chili Peppers/Foo Fighters show. All I have to say is, I feel old. Damn I felt young last night, but tonight, I felt like an old man. Ten years ago I would want nothing better than to be at one of these gigs. Tonight I felt removed. Loud frat boys. The stench of beer. Guys with no shirts on. Woodstock 99 nation. I am spoiled by the Phish shows now. I love the Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl is one of the coolest guys on MTV, so I was into them. They played every song that you would want them to play, and that was it. They did a Pink Floyd song as well, Have A Cigar. Dave got on the drums for that one. Shit, he is an amazing drummer. But...seeing Phish all the time, you get addicted, you can't miss a show. It's different every single night. You always think you're going to miss something. I said to Heather on the way out "So we could have just not gone to that show and we still would have been happy tomorrow either way. The Chili Peppers were pretty good as well. Although, as Heather pointed out, it was a bit silly watching people happy and jumping around dancing to depressing songs like Scar Tissue, and My Lovely Man or whatever it's called. The music moves people though, so you can't fault folks for that. I like when a band can do that, play a great happy sounding melody, and put sad, or depressing words to it. Phish does this well with their song Sparkle. We left about 3/4 through their set, as the traffic getting out of that place is always hell. Plus I had a headache that's still with me. My vote for "Most embarrassing moment of the night" was when I ran into this guy Bob I knew from way back. He used to work at the CD store I work at way before I did. Anyway, he's a typical "Masshole"( A Masshole is a person from Massachusetts who couldn't be from anywhere but Massachusetts. The typical Masshole will have a Boston Bruins shirt on, stone washed jeans on, and maybe some of those Timberland boots on[with the pants tucked in to them of course] They yell alot, have thick Massachusetts accents, and are generally annoying as hell. Or rather, these are my customers at the store). So he was with this other guy. Both of them holding their beers up high to their mouths. They're both probably 37 years old or so. I introduce them to Heather and they start talking to us. The other guy cuts us off mid conversation "Bob, right there, look at those tits man!", and then again a minute later "Dude,look at those two man, that's a double play" He then explains to Heather and I that "I'm scoutin' dude. This is the place for it dude". I felt like just telling him to shut up, but in an effort to not get beer dumped on me, or punched I just sort of humored him. So they eventually left and we kept making jokes about the "double play" comment for the remainder of the night...well, I did anyway. We saw a fight almost break out, as well as some good quotes here and there throughout the crowd: "Dude, are you ready for another makeout session like the last show?", "We're on ecstassseee", and the best one, which I forgot to tell her about right next to me from the girl to the guy: "I can't bang you tonight". Bang you. I can't remember the last time I "banged" someone actually. What a silly word for fucking that is. Now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time I fucked someone...ha ha ha. Anyway, the whole thing was okay though. If people are having a good time, who am I to say they are wrong. This is what kids are like nowadays I guess. I just feel much more comfortable with my little cult fans at Phish shows. There's so much that goes with that, it's a deep, tight community, and you never leave a show pissed off, or without having made dozens of new friends. I like that you can just randomly talk to people from all over the country that are also travelling just like you.

So last night after the other show, which btw I went to with my whole band, well there's only three of us total. Afterwards we had a good discussion about where we wanted to take everything. They are very positive about my ideas about improvisation as the key to our whole thing. When we rehearse, we normally just go in and start playing, and then take whatever we can out of that and make songs out of it. I'd like to take this approach on stage. Not just going up there and playing nothing, but playing our songs, and stretching them out here and there. If we want to play a song and improvise on it for 25 minutes why not. The music will always move you if you let it. There's a line from the Grateful Dead that says something like "...and the music played the band". This means everything to me. Once you can achieve that with your instrument, you have it solved I think. Improvisation is a major theme in my life. I don't like to plan anything, it works better this way for me. When I write, most of the time it's like this, it just sort of comes out. A lot of times it may come out too wordy, but whatever...Okay enough talk about music, let's talk about girls now...

I'm a fucking baby. It come out, it goes back in. It comes out again a year later. All these phone calls, all these late night desperate attempts at satisfaction. All these nights of trying to figure out what the hell I'm actually doing. Is this the right thing to be doing right now? Why do I live in a closet. I have skeletons in there with me. I feel like I'm being wrong. I feel like a hypocrite every day. I feel like a liar. I feel like I could just end this and come out on top, if I do it now. I feel like this is what I need right now, I'm just putting another name on it. It's like a drug to me. Passion. Passion in sex. Passion in kissing. It get's me everytime. Please don't look in my eyes like that. I just don't want you to look inside there. I'm putting these sunglasses on now, you're freaking me out. You are bad news I can tell. I barely know anything, but I know. Close your eyes for this. Can we go out to dinner instead tonight? Can we just talk about your record collection, or the impending rain. Don't look into my eyes when you kiss me. You're not going to see anything out those windows. The curtain is going to close on you soon, just like it's been the whole time. Nobody will ever know. Does he know? I don't think this is for me. I'm going to sit right down and write me a letter. Dear me, I don't think you want anyone looking in the windows right now. You have only looked in one persons eyes in the past year like that, and it was a great thing.

(okay, so Stefanie called while I was writing this, and it's now 107 minutes later, and I've lost my train of thought...a good conversation though)

out

before & after